Orwell Meets Reality TV

Under Trump, top US health agency forbids officials to use these words in budget documents: fetus, transgender, diversity, science-based, evidence-based, vulnerable, entitlement. https://t.co/W5P1JrnPaZ

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) December 16, 2017

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot—a very big, a very impressive boot, people are talking about this boot—stomping a human face, which, to be frank, is not impressive, a bad face, but the boot is very impressive and big. We're gonna stomp, folks, believe me."

— Julius Goat, pa rum pum pum pum 🦆 (@JuliusGoat) December 16, 2017

Not Acts Of God

Florida: the state with the highest percentage of elderly residents. Add in the usual category of invisible people, too poor to have vehicles or enough money to evacuate...

Must-read on Irma, the logistics of hurricane evacuation, and the need for long-term, structural change https://t.co/hXEoKfVrcD pic.twitter.com/sUkgYkSmA4

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 9, 2017

Republicans believed pizzagate, birtherism & deep state. But mention global warming & suddenly they're all skeptics https://t.co/rEixF17s6P

— Nate Lerner (@NathanLerner) September 8, 2017

There are 2 hurricanes lined up behind Irma, more than a million acres have burned in MT and Houston just experienced catastrophic flooding. https://t.co/CzmKl9eyXS

— Angela Dallman (@angeladallman) September 8, 2017

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Hurricane Irma: The time to talk about climate change isn't now https://t.co/d0OjhNjQfX pic.twitter.com/uGlixBRizJ

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 8, 2017

the right time was decades ago but here we are scott here we are https://t.co/EohHTuOkzz

— darth:™ (@darth) September 8, 2017

Once upon a time dangerous psychopaths cut letters out of newspapers, glued them into sentences, and sent them to the police. Today... pic.twitter.com/pg6cZCBEHd

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) September 9, 2017

After telling listeners Irma was a liberal hoax, Limbaugh quietly evacuates South Florida https://t.co/JAtylJjmHF pic.twitter.com/3XyhfiE577

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 8, 2017

As multiple hurricanes bear down on the US, Trump is asking you to donate money...to him pic.twitter.com/sQoY5GpukV

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 8, 2017

Ready, Set, Sign

Make America great pollution unregulated again!

70 year old man poisoning the earth to make his even older pals a little bit richer. https://t.co/llcN7ezsyP

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 28, 2017

"Kids, I'm signing papers here that's going to ruin the planet for you. I'm a psychopath and you will curse my name when you are older." pic.twitter.com/UyP3M9zXxP

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 28, 2017

"This is 'The Living Will Envy the Dead Act.' I have no idea why we're doing this, I just sign what Steve hands me."

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 28, 2017

I always forget about Bannon's involvement with the biosphere.https://t.co/JJz3AQ4c6J

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 28, 2017

Why do I feel like a Thiel is building a giant biobunker in New Zealand for all these mugs to survive the chaos they wrought?

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 28, 2017

Model Legislation: The War On Women's Health

Shakezula looks at something Republicans (other than that one guy) are newly are up to; on the state level, where they get to test these things out. Here, it's Arkansas, where,

The "Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Abortion Act," signed into law last week by Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), bans dilation and evacuation procedures, in which the physician removes the fetus from the womb with surgical tools. D&E procedures are the safest and most common way women can end their pregnancies after 14 weeks of gestation, according to the American Medical Association.

Shakezula—

The ban on D&E pairs well with the fact that Arkansas already makes it difficult for women to receive a abortion during the first trimester.

The law, HB1032, defines an unborn child as "an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth" at which point the sort of people who pass these bills cease to give a fuck and – because lines are never blurred enough for the GOP – a woman as "a female human being whether or not she has reached the age of majority."

The law also intimidates abortion providers by allowing people to sue the doctor who performs or attempts to perform a D&E unless it was required to save the pregnant woman or girl’s life: The person seeking the abortion, the husband of the person seeking the abortion or parents of a minor seeking an abortion. I don't know how many providers in Arkansas perform D&E, but once this law goes into effect they're going to be swamped by idiots trying to run their own sting operations.

In addition, a patient, the patient's husband/guardian (same difference in The Patriarchy) or another health care provider of the patient can file an injunction against the provider who intends to perform the abortion.

The woman, the husband and health care providers all have the right to control the woman’s body; if that doesn’t say equality, what does? But it gets worse (of course).

The law states that the husband cannot sue the doctor for money in cases of "criminal conduct" against his wife ― namely, spousal rape ― but he could still sue to block her from having the abortion.

Nothing says law and order like letting violent criminals control their victims.

Podium For Panic

Nurse returning from Liberia, essentially kidnapped at the airport, but manages to get the story out. At that Dallas News link, readers pretty much want to burn her as a witch.

Along with the medically inappropriate actions against Kaci Hickox, there are more opportunities for politicians to grandstand—

...In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, issued a stern warning on Thursday to medical experts coming to an international conference on tropical diseases that they should stay away if they had been in Ebola-affected countries in the past 21 days, and that those who defied would be confined to their hotel rooms.
...

Dr. Alan J. Magill, the president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, said the move by Louisiana to block doctors who had treated Ebola patients from its conference this weekend would harm crucial sessions where scientists, doctors and administrators who had been in the region were going to teach others.

So far, 10 to 15 participants had scrapped their trips, he said.

"We are clearly going to lose some of our speakers who have had the most experience, and that would deprive the learning from going forward," said Dr. Magill, also the director for malaria at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program.

Decision-making style here can only be a source of envy for our own aspiring dear leaders.

But, just in case there were any call for a little perspective, here's some from Charles Pierce—

As long as there have been human beings, there has been epidemic disease. As long as there has been epidemic disease, there has been panic. As long as there has been panic, there have been heroes who stand in the middle of it, heedless of the blind terror, and beat it back through the sheer force of their humanity.

And as long as there have been human beings, there have been human beings with power over other human beings. As long as there have been human beings with power over other human beings, there have been governments. And as long as there has been epidemic disease, and as long as there has been panic, there have been human beings who have the right combination of rancid ambition and foul cowardice who come into the government and seek advantage from the panic and, therefore, from the epidemic disease itself. There have always been human beings who are heroes in the face of epidemic disease. And there have always been slaves to their own worst instincts.

Which is where Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo come in, along with the right-wing noise machine fueling this panic, aided and abetted our craven media—

CNN can't help itself because it already has fired up the logo and the doomy music. Sorry, Malaysian Airlines 370. You're on your own now, wherever you are.

That's infinitely more profitable than promoting reality, which can be summarized—

Fear Mongering, 101

On the bus weekday mornings, I chat with a woman going to the same destination. She's a medical research scientist, and last Wednesday she began bringing up the subject of Ebola. Immunology is not her field, and it wasn't as a medical topic that it was on her mind: of course it was the sudden prominence in US media of the West African epidemic prompting this.

Next morning, same topic. I had to say that that, so far in this country, one caregiver has gotten sick, after her hospital's mismanagement of an infected patient. As serious a concern as epidemic prevention is, the US numbers don't warrant the public's level of fear. And that fear is thanks to the same media that won't look at an ongoing public health issue like the staggering number of gun deaths.

My seatmate agreed—then reminded me her son has been traveling to medical school interviews, and she's concerned about his going through airports. It's an understandable reaction, and I hoped I hadn't sounded harsh.

Still, it's depressing how fast and effective the fear mongering is, and how it works just as well on people who might be expected to stop, think, and remember some facts.

At least my fellow bus rider was able to see some context beyond the headlines. Most of our fellow 'Murkans aren't likely to be exposed to facts, certainly not when those only get in the way of a politically profitable panic.

Steve M. makes a noble effort to clue in the media—

I know that, by now, much of America probably thinks that "we don't really know" what the incubation period is, just as they think "we don't really know" how Ebola is transmitted. But no matter what they think, they need to be reminded that there are no non-medical personnel who've contracted Ebola via Thomas Eric Duncan. Not his relatives. Not his fiancee. Not the people at the apartment complex where he was staying. ...
...
... I have to think that some people would understand if they were reminded that the disease is being transmitted pretty much exactly the way the authorities have always thought it's transmitted, and isn't being transmitted ambiently, just as the experts told us.

Ebola was discovered in 1976. Do most Americans know that -- know that scientists have had 38 years to figure out what it does? Could the press please remind the public of the fact that this virus hasn't been a mystery to scientists for decades?

The Dallas hospital grossly mishandled the first US victim's condition. Yves Smith quotes the BBC—

This is a crude, and damning, statistic but so far Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) has treated thousands of people in West Africa with Ebola, and has seen 16 medical workers contract the disease. This hospital in Dallas has treated just one patient, and has two sick healthcare staff.

Smith's post introduces an article by Roy Poses, MD, which "goes into considerable, damning detail about the considerable mismanagement of Duncan's case and how it demonstrates how short-sighted it is to have MBAs run hospitals. These details have become public despite a gag order having apparently been put in place on the staff of the hospital that treated the first patient, hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian. Imagine what we don't yet know."

Poses oulines the predictable results of cost-cutting: Duncan's being left alone, but in an area where others were exposed; management resistance to placing him in an isolation unit, despite a nurse supervisor's insistence; lab samples sent through normal procedures, possibly contaminating the hospital's entire tube system.

Despite hospital gag orders against nurses, some brave ones got the story out—via some unionized sisters. One nurse also spoke directly.

And a week ago, Roy Edroso calling "...War on Science, Only Dumber"—

National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, probably annoyed that Republicans who couldn't give two shits about medical research are whooping up Ebola like it's an STD Obama is giving to white women, came out and said that budget cuts to the NIH have adversely impacted their development of a vaccine.

Meanwhile, On Earth...

As usual, nothing to see: as when record flooding in Colorado makes a great human interest story, but only some concerned locals and environmentalists seem to have noticed the concentration of oil and gas drilling in the affected area—or how many wells and contaminant holding tanks were damaged.

It took at least another week before there was a little more national coverage, other than human interest.

In other parts: nothing to see here.


Or here, even as this approaches.

Dark Ages

Minneapolis, 1939
Photographer: John Vachon
Library of Congress

[Decades pass, centuries change; the spelling ability remains the same...]

It's not enough for the current fundie/wingnut astroturf* to merely fan nationwide racist hysteria.

Glenn Greenwald's take on the "9-11 mosque" insanity is worth reading; * identified at Update III.

Apparently, that was not have been good enough, so a Reagan appointee issues out-of-the-blue injunction against Science, on behalf of Snowflake Babies™.

It suggests a bad SciFi plot: petri dishes of embryo pods being readied to invade human society; humans being potentially capable of reason, something that must be stopped...

Or, was this mainly because the anti-women's health crowd needed some riling prior to the election—maybe teabagging operations haven't been working them up adequately?

Or, what's the "follow the money" angle here? In a Bush v. Gore-like decision, two researchers (as opposed to everyone else) are "harmed" by guidelines "lessening their chance of receiving funding for work on adult stem cells." [my emphasis, in that quote].

Whichever way, it's Politically-Connected Christianists: 1;
Scientific Advance/Potential Treatment of Diseases and Creation of Domestic Industries: 0

July 2006 (I): Invitation

Photo: etsyapril

An envelope appears on my desk. In the handwriting of Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant, addressed to "[My Name] and Guest."

Enclosure #1 is a printed card:

Two lives, two hearts
Joined together in friendship
United forever in love.
It is with joy that we,
Elly May Xxxxx
and
Sonny Xxxxx
Invite you to share in a celebration of love
As we exchange our marriage vows
[date/time/church location]
Cake Reception to follow in the Fellowship Hall

"Cake Reception"...? Clever Sister informs me this is a Southern Baptist rite: cheap sheet cake and fruit punch, which eliminates booze and the expense of a meal, while allowing the family to demand gifts.

Jesus' BAA seems to be in some sect that perhaps stops short of snake-handling, but includes glossolalia. [Although wouldn't the deaf parishioners have to sign in tongues?] But the cheapness and alcohol phobia definitely fit.

Enclosure #2 is an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet [done on the office printer?]: the couple's photo, with groom's smiling display of his bad teeth. Below the photo—

Sonny is the son of Sonny Xxxxx and Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant.
Sonny is pursing a career in network administration.

[Translation: he's struggling to not flunk out of community college.]

Elly May is the daughter of ...
Elly May is pursing a career in sales with Lia Sophia jewelry.

A "career" in home sales parties! And she's being "mentored" in this by Jesus' BAA, who's been doing these parties.

Though Clever Sister suspects this is what she's really selling.

A NYT "Weddings" page power couple, this ain't. Though since the bridal shower, the gift begging has become slightly more ambitious:

Sonny and Elly May are registered at Sears (Sears.com)...[local chain]...Target (Target.com) and Mikasa (Mikasa.com).

The wedding is at the end of the month. Typically, Jesus' BAA is only taking a couple of days off, so is available to be annoying throughout most of July.

Which is when there's a huge local story—Google has announced plans to open a facility in town...and the residents are bewitched by visions of dollar signs dancing before their eyes. It sounds like there will be only a handful of jobs, but a large segment of town seems to believe they personally are about to be hired. And the real estate owning types expect Google will buy their particular piece of property.

I know about this because people are blogging furiously, and Clever Sister has been sending me links. Then, this arrives from CS:

Does anyone have information on where Google is interviewing or on how to apply? There is nothing on the Google website indicating they have openings.
—[signed with first name identical to that of Jesus' BAA]

CS' reaction—

Is it her? If u are too stooped to figgur how to apply don't...

Jesus' BAA most certainly would believe she can get Sonny a job—she sees herself as a first-rate expert who knows exactly how things are done in the professional world.

But I think it's too unlikely the post would be hers. Her name isn't all that uncommon, for one thing. But mainly, I don't see her finding her way to an "urban" blog—who knows what kind of heathens might be hanging around there, after all.

But Clever Sister is convinced that the post is really from Jesus' BAA. CS goes into action, replying to the poster of the question about interviews—

If you can't figure out to apply maybe you or your family should not bother?
—Larry & Sergey

That post is followed by a helpful person, John Q, who offers a link to the job postings.

Followed by a reply—

John Q,
Are you forgetting your Darwin?
—Larry & Sergey

24 hours later, CS says about the thread:

So far, since yesterday, L&S have the last word!
They must think that was really from L&S and Google won't build here if they reply!

In other news this month, C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden . Mission Accomplished, no doubt. And bin Laden certainly has served his purpose when there's been the need to fill the media with a boogeyman.

And as Jonathan Schwartz observes, We're Making Real Progress! Comparing remarks by Bush slightly before the Iraq invasion with some after the mid-month G-8 meeting—

You see, he's learning! ...Bush doesn't know who or where different kinds of Muslims are. But still, after a brief 5 years of our "war on terror," he has learned they exist!

And Bush vetoes stem cell legislation—to date, his only outright veto.

Because, the transcript says, science "offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity"...

Something Bush and crew are already doing only too well on their own.

May 2005 (I): Back In The USSA

Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant runs an annual church camp for deaf/developmentally disabled people in June. Which causes her to leave the office—for an entire week of vacation.

Though her camp may sound noble, over the years I'm trapped in a room with this woman I hear sub-text suggesting something very different—that the deaf/DD are somehow Jesus' BAA's cross to bear. It must be something like that—because all indications are that she really dislikes her charges.

Gearing up for next month, Jesus' BAA posts a plea on the lunch room bulletin board. She wants donations of "craft supplies," and her list is very specific, including:

Toilet paper cardboard rolls
Egg cartons
Empty bleach jugs
CDs (cracked, but not broken)

And more that I've forgotten, but the other items are just as pathetic. I get the strong impression that Jesus' BAA considers these things "good enough for them—they won't know any better."

The camp is named in the traditional way: by cobbling together syllables of actual words, to create a fake-Indian name. In this case, the words need to be something in the fundie-speak line. So, let's say this name is "submit-mortify-follow = Camp SuMoFo."

May 1 is the second anniversary of Glorious Leader's "Mission Accomplished" photo op.

Each photo op is always akin to a picture puzzle of the find-what-doesn't-fit kind.

But this photo op, intended as it was to be a peak moment for the regime, required an even higher degree of orchestration than usual. The ship had to be turned around to obscure its actual location; the infamous banner hung (later to be blamed on the crew); the former AWOL jetted in—to create the illusion that he had flown and landed the plane, and to have him emerge in ludicrous costume, including "enhanced" codpiece.

And the date was no accident—the regime's propagandists are still so obsessed with Commies, and their degree of psychological projection is so enormous that they gleefully embrace the symbols and methods of "the other side."

As in, Grover Norquist's Lenin fixation, reported by David Brock:

...Grover admired the iron dedication of Lenin, whose dictum "Probe with bayonets, looking for weakness" he often quoted, and whose majestic portrait hung in Grover's Washington living room.

And there's the Cato Institute's "Leninist Strategy" for Social Security. In which the writers propose "what one might crudely call guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it," the latter being "the elderly… a very powerful and vocal interest group." Because "as Lenin well knew, to be a successful revolutionary, one must also be patient and consistently plan for real reform."

Matt Taibbi—who actually lived for a time in the Soviet Union—turned the table on this. Within days of the 2003 photo op, he responded with, "Back in the U.S.S.A."—

Ask anyone who’s lived in a communist country, and he’ll tell you: Modern America is deja vu all over again. And if ever there was a Soviet spectacle, it was Bush’s speech last week.

Think about it. Huge weapons on display, in foreground and background. The leader who has never fought dressed in full military regalia. Crowds of adoring soldiers and "shock worker" types dressed in colorful costumes, carefully arranged for the cameras. A terrible, excruciatingly dull speech, 20 minutes of incoherent, redundant patriotism (Bush used the words "free" or "freedom" 19 times in an 1800-word speech) and chimpanzoid chest-pounding.

On May Day.

That was Red Square every year for about 70 straight years. And now it is a most natural fit in our society.

After a Bush photo op late this the month, Clever Sister forwards freaky quotes from this source—

NIGHTLIGHT CHRISTIAN ADOPTIONS WAS INTRODUCED BY PRESIDENT BUSH AT MAY 24,2005, 2:10pm EST PRESS CONFERENCE ON STEM CELL RESEARCH. HE SPOKE OF THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE AND THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "SPARE EMBRYO."TWENTY ONE OF OUR SNOWFLAKES CHILDREN JOINED HIM IN ORDER TO PUT A FACE TO THESE EMBRYOS UNDER DISCUSSION.

Nightlight Snowflakes FAQ

Nightlight is the only agency in the country (that we are aware of)* that offers Embryo Adoption. As you consider your options you should know that another method of adoption is now available embryo adoption. By some estimates, there are over 100,000 frozen embryos in cryo banks throughout the United States. Pre born children are waiting.

[*A 2009 search shows that they've made sure of this: "Snowflakes is a registered trademark of Nightlight Christian Adoptions."]

And in Kansas one of the new versions of the Scopes trial unfolds—well-funded right-wingers working here, as in other states, for a Scopes re-write.

PZ Myers responds with a piece about much older Kansas events:

There is a geological formation in Kansas called the Niobrara Chalk. Actually, it's not just in Kansas; it extends all the way up into Canada, but the Niobrara has been exposed by erosion over much of northwestern Kansas, making it easy to dig into.

...The exposed chalks of northwestern Kansas are also old, dating to between 87 and 82 million years ago...

The inescapable conclusion is that Kansas was under water during the age of the dinosaurs...

After describing the fossil record's "genuinely weird animals—we have nothing comparable to them today—yet they were diverse and successful and found in numbers in the Niobrara Chalk," Myers goes on to say:

I've only briefly visited modern Kansas, but the Kansas of my imagination is a fiercely exotic ocean, a warm and savage sea richer than any place still extant. Try mentioning the magic word "Niobrara" to a paleontologist, or any enthusiast familiar with Mesozoic reptiles...their eyes will light up as it conjures visions of the world of 85 million years ago, a world well documented in the incredible fossil beds of Kansas. It's a powerful, evocative word that links us to a wealth of evidence and a complex, fascinating history.

Reading about the ridiculous anti-evolution trial going on there was rather depressing. It isn't just that the creationist arguments are so poor, but that they are making them in Kansas, where beneath their very feet are the relics of an ancient world that show them to be wrong. Don't schoolchildren there take pride in the paleontological wealth of their home? Do the people bury their imaginations and avoid thinking about the history that surrounds them?

And, Myers says, if there were truth in the "metaphysical codswallop" of the challengers to science education, then "the [courthouse] floor would have cracked open beneath their feet to allow a spectral tylosaur to rise up and gulp them down."